16 Dr Hibbert on the Discovery of the Fossil Elk. 



tinction is not referable to a period so long prior to all histo- 

 rical records, as to claim for them an antediluvian origin. The 

 last question is the one that I shall at present consider. 



The first British naturalist who attracted the attention of 

 philosophers to the Fossil Elk, was Sir Thomas Molyneux, 

 who, in the year 1726, described it with far more accuracy 

 than had been done before. He pronounced it to be of the 

 genus Cervinum, or deer kind, and of the sort that carries 

 broad or palmed horns, bearing a greater affinity to the buck 

 or fallow-deer, than to the stag or rein-deer, which has round 

 horns, branched without a palm. * He also observed, that the 

 Irish elks were gregarious like the elks of Sweden, or the 

 rein-deer of the Northern countries of Europe ; — drawing this 

 conclusion from the statement of a Mr Osborne, who, while 

 he was trenching an orchard, found three heads and sets of 

 horns in the compass of one acre of land. The same philoso- 

 pher again remarked, that these animals were discovered from 

 five to ten feet under ground, in a sort of marl. 



These are the leading circumstances, with which we have 

 been long acquainted, relative to the discovery of the Fossil 

 Elk, and they are almost sufficient for any geologist to draw 

 from them the conclusion, that the race of this animal, so far 

 from being antediluvian, has either been but recently extinct, 

 or even yet exists. *}• And, in fact, this was the very conclusion 

 to which Sir Thomas Molyneux arrived, though he failed in 

 his task of endeavouring to identify the Irish elk with the 

 American moose-deer. 



Still, there has not for a century been wanting geologists, 



* An accurate representation, by Mr Burman of Douglas, of a fine head 

 of the Elk, in his possession, was sent to Alexander Seton, Esq. an able 

 Antiquary, who has obligingly permitted it to be engraved. (See Plate II, 

 Fig. 1.) The dimensions to which the letters in the figure refer, are 

 stated as follows: " From A to B, 6 feet 11 inches; from B to C, 5 feet 

 two inches ; from D to E, 2 feet 6 inches ; from F to G, 1 foot 2 inches ; 

 from H to I, 1 foot 7£ inches; from N to O, 5 feet. Ciicumference at 

 L K, 7| inches ; circumference at the root C, 11 inches." 



+ Dr Knox was led to entertain this opinion, from different sources of 

 observation, namely, from the anatomical structure of the animal, and its 

 state of preservation. 



